We Two Alone
by Cap'n Pirate Monkey
Summary: Ancient Greece AU, set just prior to the Sack of Troy. Like Achilles and Patroclus, they fight for each other above all things. Warnings for shaky knowledge of Achaean warfare and utter mangling of the Iliad. (Written for MGS Secret Santa 2011)


In the near distance, a torch burns white against the black sky.

Adam sits up. The sharp salt tang of the ocean burns in his nostrils. The sun has near turned his skin to paper, dry and thin. He has no love for this country, and, present company excepted, no love for the hollow-skulled fools he calls compatriots.

"That," his companion says, arms pillowed behind his head "was the signal to proceed, wasn't it?"

"It was probably a firefly," the younger man says, with a dismissive wave. "Or maybe nothing at all. Who says it has to be significant? Can't we just stay here until the ships land? I'd rather leave this sorry campaign to the rest of those fools."

The other man quirks an eyebrow. In the low moonlight, Adam thinks, he looks more animal than man, a broad-boned satyr with narrow eyes and hair that hangs like a lion's mane, wild and unkempt. "You would desert your own army?" he asks, in a tone that betrays a complete lack of surprise.

"Troy is finished." Adam speaks with the certainty of one well-versed in battle, one who has seen campaigns fail and great men slaughtered, and yet compared to the man beside him he is a mere infant of the battlefield. The bronze of his armour glows a pale gold in the moonlight. By contrast, his companion is unabashedly naked, his armour piled beside him like stolen treasure. "All of this..." he gestures towards the bay, to the black water that laps at the rocks like a greedy animal. "All of these men. All these years of unending war. And for what? So a man might be reunited with his wife? Frankly, I'm ashamed to be part of it. We've taken all there is to take. We could leave now and Troy would die anyway. We have no further business here."

The other man looks up at him with unblinking eyes. "And yet, here you are."

"Here I am," he agrees. A litany of reasons turn like wheels in the dark space of his mind, interconnected like some great network of cogs - _because fighting is all I know, because without battle I am nothing, because without you I am nothing, because I would follow you to the end of the earth –_ and he rejects each one without hesitation, because to speak them aloud would be akin to offering his heart on a plate. He stares sidelong at his companion, at the way his weathered skin stretches like fine leather across the blunt contours of his ribcage, and the musculature so fine it might have been hand-carved by the gods themselves. At the sharp angles of his jaw, and his eyes, moon-grey in the darkness.

"You know how it is, John," Adam says, affecting the kind of unashamedly self-reverential smirk that should infuriate his companion, but instead elicits the smallest of smiles. "These men. They need someone to guide them. Someone to look to. They've been lost since Achilles died."

Out in the dark, the heavy clatter of hooves on dry ground echo like a thunderclap. The earth beneath them rumbles. For a brief moment, it seems as though every muscle in John's body has tensed, and that he might spring at any moment, a coiled snake primed to strike. And then the hoofbeats recede into the distance, towards Troy, and the night air is still once again.

"You are no Achilles," John tells him.

Adam feels his features curve downwards into a frown, and fights to remain impassive. The older man is gathering his clothes, his armour, dressing once again for the business of war. He is about to press him on the matter when there is a great din, a cacophony of voices and water roaring like Scylla come to life as the ships reach shore, and their time here is up.

Later, when blood paints the dry earth a thick and unbecoming red, and the song of battle is loud in their ears, John explains.

"If you're Achilles," he says, during a brief lull in which they lose sight of Ajax, running like a man possessed towards the temple, "then that would make me Patroclus. And I'll be damned before I let their fate become ours. Damned if I'll die that way."

The Trojans fight like startled animals, wild and fierce and afraid, using the city itself as a weapon against the parasitic Achaeans. The great wooden horse is a disinterested onlooker, a moonlit monument to Odysseus' cunning, blind and mute and utterly still. Even in the gloom, Adam's arrows find their targets with ease, and no small amount of grace.

"I was speaking metaphorically," Adam says, a little irritated at his companion's habit of taking everything literally. "Of course, I am no half-god, and I'm quite sure you weren't raised by a centaur." An arrow arcs high in the air, sailing through the black sky, and he sidesteps it with practised nonchalance. It hits the ground with a thud. "And besides, Patroclus was a damn fool, and you are nothing of the sort. But I would avenge you, as he did."

John's sword finds purchase in the arm of a Trojan already prickled with arrows. His helmet hangs at an angle on his head, the black plume spattered with blood, and as he falls to the ground Adam realises that John has barely registered this victory, so fast is it over. "Even if it cost you your own life?" he asks, and Adam nods without hesitation, a firm affirmative. It doesn't even require thought. His life for John's. It sounds like a fair trade, if ever it comes to that.

John wipes his blade on his tunic, staining the oxhide a deep red. "You're not near-immortal either, Adam," he says, a little wearily. "Though I'm sure you think you are. I wish you'd remember that, sometimes."

"Who wants to live forever?" Adam says.

Around them, the air is thick with acrid woodsmoke, and the sounds of men's voices echo like a symphony. Adam sees the man approach before John does, clutching a bronze-tipped spear, the bodies of his compatriots now mere obstacles underfoot. He is too close, moving too fast to hit with an arrow, even for a man with Adam's skill; he is about to cry out, to warn John when the other man turns, grasps the spear in one hand and wrenches it upwards, as if to impale the moon itself. The motion is so fluid and graceful it seems to Adam that John has practised this a hundred times over. He pulls a knife from a sheath at his side and, with a sweep of his arm, embeds it in the chest of his assailant. Adam stands, a little open-mouthed; never before has he seen the dagger, the last resort of the cornered warrior, so skillfully employed. There is a lot John can teach him, about battle, about controlling one's pride and one's temper, about knowing the right moment to strike, but at this moment, with the ashes of a dying city swirling in the wind like fallen leaves and the sweat of effort still glistening on their bodies, all he wants to learn is how it would feel to have that weathered skin pressed against his own.

The city is vivid with flame, alive with it. Silhouettes writhe on the walls as men struggle against one another, a theatre of shadows. Dead men litter the ground. They seem diminished, somehow, smaller. It seems to Adam, as they observe the chaos from a distance, that the war is happening somewhere far away, and that their part in it is over.

"Troy is finished," John says, decisive. "We have no further business here."

The city gates are wide open, a yawning mouth guarded by nobody, empty and unobserved. Beyond lies the ocean, and the coming dawn. Adam catches John's backward glance and knows, as if by instinct, what he is thinking.

"I could have told you that," he says, with a smirk.

The sharp salt tang of the ocean is bliss, the sea spray cool against their hot skin.

Their hearts still pound with the adrenaline of battle, and with the quickening rhythm of their coupling, hidden here in the dark. John demonstrates, and Adam is an eager student, following the older man's lead with hesitant hands.

In the near distance, a city burns red against the black sky.


End file.
